The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Freeport’s expiring investment incentives should be extended until 2054 “in exchange” for the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) and Hutchison Whampoa fulfilling their 1993 commitments and new development goals.

Kevin D. Seymour, a senior Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce executive, yesterday told a compliance officers’ conference that he was “strongly in favour” of extending the city’s expiring real property tax breaks and other incentives in return for certain conditions being met.

Mr Seymour said these included the GBPA and Grand Bahamas Development Company (DEVCO), which is 50 per cent owned by Hutchison Whampoa, “satisfactorily completing” the 21 tasks they pledged to undertake in the Freeport (Grand Bahama) Act 1993.

And the chairman of the Chamber’s ethics and legislation committee also called on the Government to set the GBPA and DEVCO new terms in return for extending Freeport’s existing investment incentive regime beyond 2015.

Significantly, he suggested these include the transfer of the GBPA’s quasi-governmental, development and regulatory powers should there be a shareholder dispute or non-compliance with its promises and undertakings.

This appears designed to avoid the paralysis that occurred at the GBPA between 2006-2010, when the Hayward and St George families went to war, and Freeport’s economy and development were ignored and allowed to continue heading south.

Mr Seymour also suggested that the GBPA’s Board composition be amended by statute law to make it “more representative of the community that it serves”, via members from the Ministry of Grand Bahama, local government and Freeport’s 3,500 business licensees.

Calling on Freeport’s boundaries to cover all Grand Bahama, as the Government has effectively done via the extension of duty-free investment incentives, Mr Seymour also called upon the GBPA and Hutchison to “resurrect” plans to develop the Sea/Air Business Centre as a free trade zones.

Other tasks that he suggested be assigned to them included working with the Government to develop Freeport into a regional arbitration hub; create a northern campus of the Bahamas Agricultural and Marine Science Institute; and develop a ‘world class” medical facility and research centre in Freeport.

“Government needs to clearly understand that a major reason that most, if not all of GBPA’s licensees, are still doing business in Freeport is because of the favourable tax concessions that they receive,” Mr Seymour said.

“Removal of these concessions will likely threaten the viability of these businesses. Equally, the GBPA also needs to understand that there is a reasonable expectation among its licensees that it will zealously guard, and be seen to be guarding, their rights and privileges under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement.”

Mr Seymour added that “to enhance investor confidence and promote transparency”, the Government and GBPA needed to collaborate more closely, with the former disclosing how much tax revenue Freeport generated and the cost of providing public services in the city.

He called for the GBPA to do likewise with its municipal costs, and the criteria for determining licensee fees.

Mr Seymour said the relationship between the Government and GBPA appeared “less than cordial, one might even say frosty.... Similarly, the current relationship between the GBPA and its licensees also appear to be at an all-time low.”

The Chamber executive said it was vital that Grand Bahama be globally competitive and, to achieve this, recommended: “The Grand Bahama Power Company’s monopoly should be dismantled through negation and use of incentives, and other alternative energy players should be allowed to participate in the power generation space.

“The Government should relax its Immigration policy by providing a pathway for ‘fit and proper’ high net worth individuals and professionals such as physicians, scientists, engineers, lawyers, IT specialists to become residents and ultimately citizens of the Bahamas.”

And, in a final message to the Government, Mr Seymour said: “By now it should be clear to all and sundry that Freeport, Grand Bahama, is different.

“Instead of taking steps to make Grand Bahama conform to the rest of the country, Government should exploit its diversity and even use the Hawksbill Creek Agreement as a template for the development of other Family Islands.”